Personal watercraft are often employed as recreational vehicles and some such watercraft are provided with speaker assemblies, also known as speaker systems, to allow operators to listen to music while on their watercraft. While many different speaker assemblies exist, the wet environment of watercraft adds an additional consideration in the design and integration of such speaker assemblies.
Some watercraft, such as sports boats, are built with marine speakers built into their deck. These speakers have a waterproof surround, cone, and dust cap which prevent water from infiltrating the deck through the speaker. As such, the interior of the speaker remains a dry environment, protecting the components that are sensitive to water damage, such as the electronics and voice coil assembly. The components are only kept in a dry environment, however, if water does not enter from elsewhere into the space between the deck and hull. Some watercraft are more likely to have water enter the space below the deck than larger boats, and water entering below deck can damage sensitive speaker components.
Further, creating a sealed environment around a speaker is known in the art to negatively affect sound quality. A bass port is sometimes added to allow better transmission of bass (low) frequencies out of the speaker housing. As mentioned above, however, additional holes in the marine speaker could allow the incursion of water, resulting in damage to those sensitive electronic components.
After-market waterproof speakers are also available to be installed on different types of watercraft. These speakers are usually in the form of sealed pods that are mounted external to the deck. While these sealed speaker pods do not risk water damage to the sensitive internal components of the speakers, the pods are generally connected to a power source within the watercraft, requiring the additional expense of installing wiring along or through the deck. Additionally, any holes drilled for installation of wiring through the deck can increase the risk of water entering below the deck through those holes.
As mentioned above, sealed speakers do not produce optimal sound quality. In some instances, an additional subwoofer is included to be installed in cooperation with the speaker pods to at least partially overcome this diminished sound quality. The subwoofer can improve sound quality for bass frequencies, but the addition of the subwoofer takes up additional space on or inside the watercraft, as well as increases overall cost of the speaker system.
Therefore, there remains a desire for a personal watercraft with speakers with good sound quality and cost, and that can further withstand the rigors of being installed on or in a personal watercraft.